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Creating a World – Steam (and disk) Install for SS 6.3 and 6.4

There have been a number of guides and instructins that have been based on old versions of the Steam client and the game itself and out of necessity have been complicated, if not to say convoluted. The goal of this tutorial is to simplify the procedure as much as possible.
The procedure described underneath has been performed on 10th February 2017 with an up to date version of Steam and Medieval II Total War.

Downloading

Use the links provided on this TWC page, for the sake of convenience I have used the torrent links and found them well seeded:

After you have finished downloading, regardless which method you use, make sure all files are in one directory:

Installing 6.3

The path

Run\double click the SS6.3 application file to start the installation – the numbered bin files will be used automatically by the installer and that is the reason why they all have to be in one directory.
When presented with the installation path there should be no reason to alter\edit it unless you get some gibberish like #MyProduct# (a sure sign that the game’s registry entry is messed up\missing). The installer found my custom installation (C:\Steam\...), so you really don’t have to worry here.

Other options

You will come across options to create\omit desktop shortcuts and a menu – ignore those and leave them as is, you will need both options at one point or the other

Finishing Touches

Once the installation comes to an end you will be presented with a choice:

Choose whatever takes your fancy, you can change this setting at a later stage before starting a campaign by running the ‘Run Setup’ short cut from the Stainless Steels short cut menu.
Next you will be presented with this option screen, again choose what you want, you can change it later. Choosing one of the AI options is mandatory. Once you click 'OK' your choices get implemented which may take a little while depending on the items selected.

Steam specific Stuff

The installer now displays the message underneath, you can safely ignore the suggestion regarding the non steam game link, the desktop short cut provided by the installer works just fine:

The set up\installation will now attempt to start the mod, but if you are new to mod installations for Steam and\or have never done the copy\rename of the executable then you will be presented with this error message:

Unfortunately, the launcher does not use the universal batch file method, it only detects that the kingdoms.exe required to run the disk version is not present. This can easily be fixed by following my tutorial here.

Once you have run that tutorial simply run\double click the Stainless Steel desktop shortcut to start the mod, it is however recommended to install 6.4 first.

Installing 6.4

This is very much the same procedure as 6.3 the only difference will be the option method, instead of two separate windows it will look like this after you have chosen your campaign:

Choose your options, click ‘OK’ and then ‘Start and Exit’. If you have done the ‘copy\rename’ tutorial already then the mod will now start. Use the provided desktop short cut to start subsequent games.

Fixes

The original installation of Stainless Steel does not provide STRING.BIN files (which the game references) as these are generated automatically at game start from the TXT files in the data\text folder. Unfortunately, the Steam version of the game does not generate these files from the battle, shared, strat and tooltips TXT files.
Included in the download of this tutorial in PDF form is a folder called ‘text’ that contains these missing files and their original TXT counterpart – simply extract the folder into the mods\SS6.3\data folder and allow overwriting of existing files.

Re: Creating a World – Steam (and disk) Install for SS 6.3 and 6.4

Not to be overly picky, but the OP's link to the 6.3 main files points to the 6.4 patch, and the link to the 6.4 patch actually points to the main 6.3 files. I mean, both necessary files are linked, so no one's going to be unable to download the installation files, but it's a bit annoying, and I clicked the 6.3 link three times wondering why I couldn't access the 6.3 main files.